Ghost Peep Brownies

Just wanted to share a fun recipe the whole family can help make. 

Ghost Peep Brownies

Here is what you will need:

A box of your favorite brownie mix

An 8 x 8 baking dish (perfect size for 3 rows of 3 peeps)

Graham crackers

Chocolate chips

2 tablespoons butter

And of course some ghost peeps 

(I found mine in the dollar spot at Target)

First you will need to smash up some graham crackers for the crust. I used my favorite 2 year old for this. She used two of her plastic hammers and went at it.

Once your graham crackers are nice and crumbled melt your butter. Mix melted butter with graham crackers and press around the bottom of your baking dish to form a crust.

Bake crust for 10 minutes.

Next prepare your brownie mix according to package directions. Pour over graham cracker crust. 

Bake according to package directions

Once the brownies are done remove from oven and place peeps on top. 

Now place in the broiler. Please pay attention! If your house is like mine try to tune out the kids running around throwing shoes at each other and jumping on the couch. If not, your results will be frightening!!! Leave them in long enough to lightly toast the top! 

You will notice that once placed in the broiler the eyes disappear almost immediately. Don't worry! This is where the chocolate chips come in handy. After you remove them from the broiler place the chips to make the eyes and mouth. Mini chips would be ideal but I didn't have those so I just used what I had. 

Now go...enjoy the delicious gooeyness!!! Yes that's a word! Your welcome:)

XOXO~Jenn

Halloween Treats for kids

My kids are making their way through their Halloween countdown and having a spooktacular time doing it! A few days ago we made some boo mix, complete with witches warts, ghost poop, goblin teeth and monster scabs. Tutorial is below. 

Boo mix

Golden Graham's cereal

Mini marshmallows

Mini chocolate chips

Candy corn

Here is the fun part. Huddle up your favorite kiddos and have them dump all the ingredients into a large bowl and mix. So easy and fun for everyone. We usually play monster mash while doing it:) 

Another treat my kids loved was "spooky juice" 

This juice was kind of accidental. One of those recipes that you make up as you go along. The end result was so yummy my kids have asked for it again. 

Spooky Juice

1 (2) liter Sunkist

1 (2) liter diet 7 up

1 cup apple juice

1 packet orange Kool aid

Mix well and serve over (now here is the spooky part) frozen gummy worms. 

Place gummy worms inside an ice tray and freeze a few hrs. The kids loved it. 

Eat, drink & be spooky!

Xoxo~Jenn 

Pumpkin luminaries

Day 9 of our countdown was pumpkin luminaries. My kiddos loved these and I even had time to make one for myself:) Here is a quick tutorial.

I saved a few spaghetti sauce jars but mason jars work too.

Orange acrylic paint

Black vinyl or black paint

Foam brushes

Vinyl cutter if you don't want to paint on the faces

Paint the outside of the jars orange with your acrylic paint (ours was from Michael's)  

Let dry. Paint again and add coats until it's completely covered. Ours took 3 coats. 

Be patient and let them dry. I found that a foam brush and the dabbing method worked perfect! Once dry I applied black vinyl jack o lantern faces:) but if you are good a free handing you could paint your faces on. I'm not! So I went with the vinyl:)

Lit them up with a flameless tea light from the dollar store:) happy haunting! 

Xoxo Jenn  

A letter from the North Pole

It's almost that time of year...yes...I said it...Christmas time! This year I'm determined to have my Christmas shopping done by December 1st. The hardest people on my list this year are my kids. Yep...the little people I see everyday. The ones who I know everything about. The ones who yell after every infomercial "mom...I need that!" The problem is they "need" it, I want to get it, but...umm...where do we put it?  We really have no room. Here is my proof. Our playroom from last Christmas! 

I get a migraine just looking at it. My oldest isn't very good about getting rid of things he no longer wants to play with. My youngest isn't much help either. This year I found the solution! Yep...I had a plan and it actually worked. Here is how I did it. I called the North Pole and spoke to Santa (yep I know him) I asked if he could send "Eddie" (our elf) if you follow this blog you will get to know Eddie well:) to help me out with this problem. For some reason when Santa asks for things they get done. Eddie rang our door bell the next morning. He had 2 boxes and this letter with him.

I had set aside a few hours so they could work on this. I played the Elf on the Shelf movie while they went through their toys and thought this would eaisly be a whole afternoon project. Nope. It took about 20min. Yep. 20 whole minutes!!! To fill up 2 boxes full of toys they no longer wanted. Some new, some with tags still attached.

It made me happy that my oldest was focused on the blessing other kids part of the letter. My youngest was more into filling her box like her brother. I was okay with that since the end result was a cleaner, less cluttered playroom. Thanks Eddie! Your the best! I can't wait until you show up after Thanksgiving so I can clean up your messes and so the kids wake up at the crack of dawn to look for you! Until then Xoxo ~Jenn

Halloween Countdown 2013

Testing...testing...anyone still reading this bloggity blog? It's been forever since I have posted but since I have a million projects planned for fall and a million more for Christmas I figured I might as well share them. So here is some of what we have been up to. 

For those of you that know me you know I love Halloween! Not just put out a few ghosts and spiders kinda love. Nope. More like a have your husband hang off the roof to hang a giant spooky witch from a cable and buy a 10ft spooky tree kinda love. I get my Halloween love from my mom. I remember doing all kinds of countdowns as a kid. There was the Christmas countdown, vacation countdown. My favorite was always the Halloween countdown. I decided to start this tradition with my kids. I hope they will always remember the fun memories we share and maybe one day do this with their kids. Here are days 1-7 incase you want to join us. Don't worry if you didn't start on October 1st. My friend does a mini version beginning Oct. 13th. Happy Haunting! 

XOXOXO~Jenn

Halloween PJ's

Candy corn feet

Halloween cups. Thanks Target! With Orange Julius recipe via Pinterest. 

Halloween movie with animal crackers.

Halloween Masks-day5

Boo crew sign with footprint ghosts-day6

Pumpkin painting:)